A Tribute to Darlene

Talk about a devoted client! Nancy F. has been a friend of the Care Center’s for many years, and has trusted us with the care of at least 10 of her precious cats! We’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each one of her babies and greatly appreciate her placing so much trust in us to treat them. We’re extremely sorry to say that her 14 year old cat, Darlene, has passed away recently - she has been a favorite patient of ours since 2002. We know that Nancy will continue to be a wonderful mom to her other cats, and we’ll be thinking about her during this time. Patients like Darlene are the reason we love our jobs at the Care Center!

PJ: 1, Poison: 0

PJ ate a poisonous plant at home that potentially causes liver damage and even death.  Luckily, the Care Center was able to treat him. He went home 3 days later! 

Here’s what his mom had to say…

“Hello, I just wanted to say thank you for all the work that you are doing and for tacking care of PJ in his time of need. PJ also said thank you, and Apache is very grateful to be with his brother again. We all really appreciate it. Thank you. I don’t know what I would do without PJ. Thank you so much!”

Cincinnati’s “HOT, HOT, HOT!”

“Man, it’s hot!” “It’s so humid out here, I can barely breathe!” “I wish I had a pool!” Sound familiar? Summertime in Cincinnati can often times be down right uncomfortable. Luckily, as people, we can simply reach for a glass of ice cold water, seek shelter in the air-conditioned indoors, or if we’re lucky enough, take a dip in our backyard pool to cool down. But for our furry family members, it’s not so easy. Unfortunately, our pets can’t tell us in words when they’re hot, but with a little knowledge and good observation skills, we can “rescue” them in their time of need!

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My name is Daisy, and I am a 2 yr-old Bulldog. This is my story about the Care Center and the great care I received! I wasn’t feeling well for a few days, and then my gums started to bleed! My parents took me to my normal doctor, and they ran some tests and discovered that my platelets - which are the cells that clot my blood - were very low. I was sent to the Dayton Care Center for more testing and around-the-clock care. It turns out that the reason my gums were bleeding and bruises were all over my belly was because my immune system was attacking and killing my platelets! My immune system didn’t realize those were my platelets and thought they were foreign. Eeek. The doctors called this disease ITP, or Immune Mediated Thrombocytopenia. Since I didn’t have many platelet’s left in my body, my blood was not clotting and was bleeding under my skin and through my gums. I heard the doctors talking to my parents, and they think my ITP was secondary to stimulation to my immune system after I had my vaccinations a couple of months ago. This happens sometimes, but not normally to a dog my age. There are other causes of ITP too, and it can sometimes be secondary to other diseases in the body. Thankfully, the Care Center was able to perform a lot of testing to make sure there was not something else wrong with me! After almost 5 days in the ICU on multiple medications and careful monitoring, my platelets finally stopped dropping and started to increase! I was finally able to go home, and I didn’t even have to have a blood transfusion (most dogs have at least one because they lose too much blood). The Care Center told me they had never seen such a bright and happy ITP patient…I must be pretty special! I know that I may have another episode of ITP in my life, but the Care center just called to check on me and I am doing GREAT! They have also told my parents what to look for in case I do have another episode so they can catch it early. I am happy to be home and am thankful for the care I received :)

My name is Daisy, and I am a 2 yr-old Bulldog. This is my story about the Care Center and the great care I received!

I wasn’t feeling well for a few days, and then my gums started to bleed! My parents took me to my normal doctor, and they ran some tests and discovered that my platelets - which are the cells that clot my blood - were very low. I was sent to the Dayton Care Center for more testing and around-the-clock care.

It turns out that the reason my gums were bleeding and bruises were all over my belly was because my immune system was attacking and killing my platelets! My immune system didn’t realize those were my platelets and thought they were foreign. Eeek. The doctors called this disease ITP, or Immune Mediated Thrombocytopenia. Since I didn’t have many platelet’s left in my body, my blood was not clotting and was bleeding under my skin and through my gums.

I heard the doctors talking to my parents, and they think my ITP was secondary to stimulation to my immune system after I had my vaccinations a couple of months ago. This happens sometimes, but not normally to a dog my age. There are other causes of ITP too, and it can sometimes be secondary to other diseases in the body. Thankfully, the Care Center was able to perform a lot of testing to make sure there was not something else wrong with me!

After almost 5 days in the ICU on multiple medications and careful monitoring, my platelets finally stopped dropping and started to increase! I was finally able to go home, and I didn’t even have to have a blood transfusion (most dogs have at least one because they lose too much blood). The Care Center told me they had never seen such a bright and happy ITP patient…I must be pretty special!

I know that I may have another episode of ITP in my life, but the Care center just called to check on me and I am doing GREAT! They have also told my parents what to look for in case I do have another episode so they can catch it early. I am happy to be home and am thankful for the care I received :)

Meet Peanut! He’s a six year-old male neutered domestic short-hair cat. Peanut first came to the Care Center at the end of May to be treated for urinating outside the litterbox and bloody urine. Peanut had a urinalysis performed at that time as well as x-rays of his abdomen to look for bladder stones. No stones were noted and his urinalysis found no sign of a bacterial urinary tract infection.

After his diagnosis, Peanut was sedated and a urinary catheter was used to relieve his obstruction and to flush out his bladder. The urinary catheter is typically left in place for a least 36-48 hours and the patient is treated with IV fluid to flush out all of the accumulated toxins in their blood stream as well as to produce large amounts of urine.

Peanut’s urinary catheter was left in place for approximately 40 hours. After his catheter was pulled, he was able to urinate multiple times on his own. Unfortunately, he developed another urethral obstruction just a few hours after his catheter was removed.

Peanut was sedated again and another urinary catheter was placed. His second catheter was left in place for another 48 hours and he continued treatment waith pain medication and IV fluids. Througou all of his treatment, Peanut was an excellent patient and truly loved all of the affection and attention he was getting from the Care Center nursing staff!

After 48 hours, Peanut’s second urinary catheter was pulled and h was able to urinate on his own. He spent another night at Care Center for monitoring and went home the following day after successfully urinating many times in the hospital. Since his discharge, Peanut has continued to urinate well at home with no relapse of his ostruction :)

As was mentioned, there is no perfect treatment to prevent recurrence of idiopathic cystitis and urethral obstruction in all animals. For male cats that have recurrent obstructions, surgery can be performed. The goal of surgery is to prevent the life-threatening obstruction from happening, but unfortunately it does not prevent the inflammation in the bladder.

Meet Pupi, a middle-aged feline. Pupi was miraculously found by her new owner trapped in the basement of an abandoned home with no food and minimal water. She had likely been trapped for a least 3 weeks, maybe even longer. When she was found, she was severely emaciated and dehydrated and was too weak to sit up or move on her own. Pupi’s rescuer took her home and started to nurse her back to health. She devotedly dripped food and water into her mouth while she became steadily stronger. Pupi was brought to the Care Center after a couple of days to pursue more aggressive treatment. She was still severely dehydrated and very weak with virtually no muscle mass left on her body. Pupi’s weakness was so severe that she had developed severe ulcers on both of her eyes because she was unable to blink on her own. Despite the severity of her condition, Pupi had just enough energy to purr and show everyone lost affection! Pupi was admitted to our isloation area since she also had an infectious upper respiratory infection. Pupi received aggressive treatment for her dehydration, corneal ulcers, and upper respiratory. She  had excellent appetite from the beginning and was fed increasing amounts of food each day. Pupi stayed with us for three days and became stronger and more affectionate with each passing hour. By the time Pupi left, she had gained 1.3 pounds!

Meet Pupi, a middle-aged feline. Pupi was miraculously found by her new owner trapped in the basement of an abandoned home with no food and minimal water. She had likely been trapped for a least 3 weeks, maybe even longer. When she was found, she was severely emaciated and dehydrated and was too weak to sit up or move on her own.

Pupi’s rescuer took her home and started to nurse her back to health. She devotedly dripped food and water into her mouth while she became steadily stronger. Pupi was brought to the Care Center after a couple of days to pursue more aggressive treatment. She was still severely dehydrated and very weak with virtually no muscle mass left on her body.

Pupi’s weakness was so severe that she had developed severe ulcers on both of her eyes because she was unable to blink on her own. Despite the severity of her condition, Pupi had just enough energy to purr and show everyone lost affection! Pupi was admitted to our isloation area since she also had an infectious upper respiratory infection.

Pupi received aggressive treatment for her dehydration, corneal ulcers, and upper respiratory. She  had excellent appetite from the beginning and was fed increasing amounts of food each day. Pupi stayed with us for three days and became stronger and more affectionate with each passing hour. By the time Pupi left, she had gained 1.3 pounds!

Hi everybody! My name is Pucker and I’m 10 years old. I have a really interesting story to share about a recent illness that I got. Lucky for me my mom brought me to the Care Center where I was successfully treated for a pretty unusual condition. Believe me…it wasn’t an easy journey but I had the skills of NUMEROUS specialists and 24 hour care in the ICU that made it possible for me to go home to my family.

My journey began back in early October when my mom noticed I was drinking a lot of water and my appetite wasn’t very good. Then one morning we woke up and the right side of my face was paralyzed! My mom took me to a different emergency clinic and they weren’t sure what was wrong with me, so they sent me home with some antibiotics. I saw my family vet the next day and they found out I had diabetes! This means my blood sugar was too high, so I was started on injections of insulin. One week later my vet found out that I wasn’t responding good enough and my diabetes had gotten worse. I was now diagnosed with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). This is a very severe form of diabetes and makes animals (and people) really really sick. On top of that, I also had pancreatitis!

Even though my family vet had treated me appropriately for diabetes, my body kept getting sicker. Because of this, they decided to send me to the Care Center so that I could see an internal medicine specialist and have nursing care around the clock.

Once I came to the Care Center I had an ultrasound performed of my abdomen. The internist also found that my mammary glands were abnormal and was concerned, it was an infection or cancer. My ultrasound showed numerous subtle abnormalities, but they didn’t find signs of cancer, which obviously we were really happy about! Small tissue samples were collected from my mammary gland and sent out to a laboratory to make sure there was no cancer.

While these tests were pending, I was started on the typical treatment for DKA, which involves lots of IV fluids and a constant infusion of insulin to try to bring my blood sugar down to normal levels. Well, since nothing about my illness was “typical,” I of course did not respond to the insulin infusion like expected. The doctors had to give me HUGE amounts of insulin to bring my blood sugar down but my numbers still barely budged. Unfortunately I also kept getting sicker and my doctors were really worried that I wasn’t going to survive.

Since I still wasn’t responding, they decided that there must be something else going on in my body causing it to not respond to the insulin (called insulin resistance). With me, there were a couple of possible causes for insulin resistance. The most likely culprit was that I was never spayed. The normal female hormones that are produced by the ovaries can make it harder for the body to respond to insulin and can make management of diabetes very difficult. For those of you out there that are mothers, it’s similar to gestational diabetes that women can develop with a few little variations. The other possible cause for my insulin resistance was the swelling in my mammary glands, regardless of whether it was caused by an infection or cancer.

Since I continued getting sicker despite all of my aggressive treatments, my doctor consulted with the other specialists in the hospital including the critical care specialist and the surgeon who all decided that the next step would be surgery to remove my ovaries, uterus,  and also remove at least some of my abnormal mammary glands. Their hope was that once my hormones were gone, my body would then be able to respond more normally to the insulin and I would start to feel better. Surgery was definitely a risk with me being so sick, but there really wasn’t any other option.   

So into surgery I went. My uterus and ovaries were removed (typical spay procedure) and one of my abnormal mammary glands was removed. The surgeon also thought my liver looked funny so she took some larger biopsies while she was in my abdomen. I did pretty well in surgery and recovered with no problems.

Over the next couple of days I remained in the hospital and continued my previous treatments for DKA. Luckily I started to improve within those 48 hours and I FINALLY felt good enough to eat again (first time in almost a week!). My blood sugars finally started to improve to the relief of all of my doctors! The rest of my bloodwork also started improving with resolution of my DKA and improvement in my kidney values (I forgot to tell you before that my kidneys also started to fail…yeah, told ya I was REALLY sick!).

Once I started getting better I never looked back! Three days after my surgery and one whole week after I came to the Care Center I was finally discharged and able to go home. I can’t even tell you how good it was to be back home!!

My biopsy results came back a few days later and can you believe it?? EVERYTHING was benign, which means no cancer for me! A little over one week after going home I had my first re-check exam with my internist to see how well my diabetes was responding to my new insulin dose and to make sure my kidneys had recovered. Again…all good news! My blood sugars were actually on the low side now, my kidney values were completely normal and my anemia  was improving!   

Since my blood sugars were a little on the low side, Dr. Doyle recommended that my mom decrease my insulin dose and also asked her to start measuring how much sugar was in my urine at home (this is easier than it sounds…they actually make little strips that you can buy at the store). If my urine never has any sugar in it, it could mean that my insulin dose was still too high. My mom checked my urine at home for the next couple of days and, surprisingly, she NEVER found sugar! Now Dr. Doyle told my mom to stop the insulin completely and keep checking my urine.

 Guess what??? My diabetes went away and I now don’t need ANY insulin!! So as it turns out, the hormones that were made in my ovaries were likely the cause of my diabetes and severe illness in the first place. From what I’ve learned from my doctors, this isn’t a very common problem in dogs but it is one of the few things that can cause diabetes to develop and then go away once an animal is spayed.

Luckily for me, my mom and doctors never gave up on me and now I’ve made an almost complete recovery (my eye is still a little droopy but it just gives me character!) From the looks of things, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be around to grow old with my mom and I couldn’t be any happier about that!

Meet Sherlock! He’s a young, male Australian Cattle Dog. Sherlock unfortunately got our of his yard January 13th and was hit by a car on a busy highway road. He was taken immediately to the Care Center hospital in Dayton. Sherlock was treated for shock at arrival and had many x-rays taken to assess his wounds. Amazingly, Sherlock did not sustain any life-threatening woulds but had acquired many fractured bones (3out of 4 limbs!), including a broken pelvis, left femur (thigh bone), right tibia (shin bone), and right radius and ulna (forearm). Because of the severity and number of his fractures, Sherlock required surgery to repair his bones. The Cincinnati Care Center hospital has staffs multiple board certified surgeons, so Sherlock was transported from the Dayton Care Center by our nursing staff to the Cincinnati hospital where he was evaluated by a surgeon on January 14th. Sherlock underwent his 1st surgery on Jan 14th and had fractures in his right fore/hind limbs repaired. He as hospitalized through the weekend for pain management and monitoring and received lots of love and attention from the nursing staff! He was very comfortable and ate well! His 2nd surgery took place on Jan 17th in which his left femur and pelviv fractures were repaired. Sherlock was discharged from the hospital one day after his 2nd surgery. His owners eagerly took over his nursing at home and he had his first re-check with the surgery staff on Jan 31st. He’s making great strides in his recovery and will have his next re-check in a coupl of weeks to repeat x-rays to assess fracture healing.

Meet Sherlock! He’s a young, male Australian Cattle Dog. Sherlock unfortunately got our of his yard January 13th and was hit by a car on a busy highway road. He was taken immediately to the Care Center hospital in Dayton. Sherlock was treated for shock at arrival and had many x-rays taken to assess his wounds. Amazingly, Sherlock did not sustain any life-threatening woulds but had acquired many fractured bones (3out of 4 limbs!), including a broken pelvis, left femur (thigh bone), right tibia (shin bone), and right radius and ulna (forearm).

Because of the severity and number of his fractures, Sherlock required surgery to repair his bones. The Cincinnati Care Center hospital has staffs multiple board certified surgeons, so Sherlock was transported from the Dayton Care Center by our nursing staff to the Cincinnati hospital where he was evaluated by a surgeon on January 14th.

Sherlock underwent his 1st surgery on Jan 14th and had fractures in his right fore/hind limbs repaired. He as hospitalized through the weekend for pain management and monitoring and received lots of love and attention from the nursing staff! He was very comfortable and ate well! His 2nd surgery took place on Jan 17th in which his left femur and pelviv fractures were repaired.

Sherlock was discharged from the hospital one day after his 2nd surgery. His owners eagerly took over his nursing at home and he had his first re-check with the surgery staff on Jan 31st. He’s making great strides in his recovery and will have his next re-check in a coupl of weeks to repeat x-rays to assess fracture healing.

Meet Chase, a 9 year-old male Greyhound. He came to the emergency department after rupturing his Achilles tendon while chasing a rabbit in a park. His injury was quickly diagnosed, and he was transferred to the surgery department for repair.

Chase was in excellent hands with the surgery staff! This is him while recovering from his surgical repair, less than 24 hours after his injury occurred. Greyhounds have some special requirements for anesthesia and can have rare complications with surgical bleeding. Chase received a tailored protocol for anesthesia and additional medications to prevent these surgical complications. Thankfully everything went as expected!

After a long period - tendons take a while to heal! - Chase was finally given the green light to start physical therapy. He is now in Canine Rehabilitation where he sees Trish Busse 2-3 times a week to receive therapeutic massage, cold laser therapy, and underwater treadmill. Chase has been an excellent patient, and he thoroughly enjoys his afternoons with Trish!

Thanks to the quick work of both emergency and surgery departments, Chase was diagnosed and through surgery in less than 24 hours. with the continued help of Care Center’s Canine Rehabilitation program and under the guidance of his surgeons, he grows stronger and more active each day